In my time of transition I continue to ‘broadcast live’ some of my thoughts on my recent move to NY. Sitting shadowed by a tower of boxes, stuffed with the things I ‘own’, its a bit hard not to have some thoughts on that favorite old topic: Rupa I am surrounded by, swimming in, a sea of my stuff. I can look at each item and remember how badly I wanted it back when I bought it. My heart believed that…
For those of you just tuning in, we are taking a little break from our regularly scheduled program ( a chronology of highlights in my Dharma practice) as I move and settle into a new home. So for a few weeks, you will be getting real-time reflections. A blow-by-blow of my life and my practice as I adjust to my new home. Last week I talked about my disappointment in my new home in New York. This week, I want…
My Dear Readers, I am going to beg your pardon today and take a break from our regularly scheduled program (a loose chronology of highlights of my dharma practice) in order to write something from the present day. I am in the process of moving, SF to NY, and to be honest, the faithful adherence to an ordered blog is a bit challenging when my stuff, dharma notebook, life and thoughts are all disorderly, strewn about, buried in boxes and…
It was the 2013 KPY retreat and LP Nut was leading some students through the forest on a hike/contemplation exercise. Suddenly we came to a nice open patch, just in front of a Kulti (a small hut), and there on the ground was a sponge. The piece of trash was such a stark contrast to the beautiful pristine forest and immediately, in my mind, I hear my most judgy voice saying, “What kind of an A****** would throw a sponge…
This next section marks an important shift in my practice and my perspective as I began to zoom-in on the role I play in creating my own suffering. Sure, before this I had an intellectual understanding that I had wrong views, that I was the source of those views. That is, after all, the only rational explanation for all the problems I had managed to solve. Nonetheless, I sorta viewed myself as a victim in my own stories and struggles….
Screw, This Dharma Thing It was the 2013 KPY retreat and Mae Yo gave each of her students an everyday object and told us to go out and contemplate it. I eagerly waited in line to receive my object and when I got to the front and opened my hand, Mae Yo gave me a screw. Honestly I was none too pleased with that screw from the get go. Other folks were getting much cooler objects. The person in front…
I was doing a walking meditation, contemplating the inevitability of aging. I thought a little about my body, my life, my family…thought about old pictures and how different everyone looks. Thought about clothes and sizes … Still nothing was really penetrating, I was just going through the motions. I kept pacing, pacing, pacing, and suddenly I became aware of my path. Originally, I had been walking a circle that had a little bit of sun and a little bit of…
I’m preparing for the 2013 retreat and I get a brilliant idea — solar powered shower. See, back in 2012 I had to take a few cold showers and I was none too pleased. So, I decided this year I would be prepared; I would bring one of those camping showers that had solar panels to heat the water. No more cold showers for me!! I did all my research, read reviews, picked-out the best product. Then, with weeks of…
Panhandlers have always annoyed me. I feel so uncomfortable when I’m asked for money on the street…I feel so torn, put on the spot, so UGHHH. On one hand, I don’t want to be a ‘bad’ Alana and say no. On the other hand, my Inside Voice is screaming… “what did you do to deserve my money?” (give or take a few vulgarities…that voice in my head has a potty mouth). One day, I’m on the street carrying a…
So yes, seriously, I did in fact get run down by a black rhinoceros when I was on safari in Kenya. Lets just say that some big learnings followed that encounter. Here I will share the entry from my notebook just after the incident (because, of course, I brought notebook on safari just in case I had a dharma moment). Note, this is another example that closely follows the 5 Question Method outlined in Method to Undo the Madness :…
I love bacon –seriously, I do a little celebration dance in the kitchen whenever my husband cooks it. I wrote a little song too: Bacon bacon such a treat, something super delicious to eat…But, it wasn’t always this way, in fact I was a moral vegetarian for more than 20 years. Squiggly line zoom-out… I was about 10 years old, my family was driving around Miami on a Saturday evening and, out of the blue, we saw a pig jump…
I was in Mendicino, a charming seaside town in Northern Cali, and I’m staring out the window of a coffee shop, watching the ocean, impatiently waiting for Eric to get his latte. At first I was mesmerized by the crashing waves, the churning near the rocks, it was so so beautiful. Then suddenly I thought, from here, from this perspective, this viewpoint, it’s all beauty no pain. I don’t notice, don’t think about…the rocks are so sharp, so dangerous, the…
I had this employee, let’s call him Glen, who just couldn’t get it together and stop making mistakes. I tried everything — I taught him, nurtured him, scolded him, guilted him, spelled-out the consequences of his mistakes, warned him — but still, every assignment he turned in was filled with errors . I WAS FRUSTRATED BEYOND BELIEF. Glen was a smart guy, he seemed pretty normal, with the skills of other opposable thumbed creatures, so how, HOW, was it possible…
Again, I have chosen a story that utilizes a method that I have found particularly helpful in my practice. The method, which was taught at the 2012 KPY retreat, basically takes 2 objects and compares them as follows: A is Better than B B is Better than A A and B are essentially the same A and B are so different from each other they are not worth comparing Back in the day, I liked this method as a quick…
I had these friends, we’ll call them, Blake and Sandy, who were always mooching off my husband and I. When we went to dinner, the grocery, the farmers market, the movies, these two would just stand on the side while my hubs and I pulled-out our wallets. I figured, for sure, when they hung out with other friends, it couldn’t be like that. So why were we always expected to pick-up the tab? The situation really tore me-up, I worried…
So I will start by admitting that this short entry is less of a story or a contemplation and more of a moment — a brief flash of awareness. It must have been mid 2012. I was at the farmers market with some friends and the day was beautiful, perfect even. I was standing, with a delicious coffee in hand, looking out at a sparkling blue ocean and it hit me. The problem statement. My problem: I don’t really believe…
I would like to preface this blog by telling you upfront, you have heard it all before. It is on a theme you may have noticed already — Ideal/ Good Alana versus Normal/Bad Alana. You can see it in the prelude to this blog (Super Buddhist versus Everyday Alana), in the Homeless Alana story, In the Compassionate Alana story, spoiler alert : in an upcoming blog about mooching friends and in the last blog of this section about fearing my practice…
I show-up at the Wat one day and LP Anan tells me that he and Mae Yo were talking about me the night before (uh-oh). They noticed that I have a problem (double uh-oh), my driving need to be compassionate (wha wha what how can this be a problem? Snap triple uh-oh), and I should go and solve it (easy as pie right?). So, in sum, my assignment was to notice the way that being a ‘compassionate’ person feeds into…
Impermanence is the meat and potatoes of my practice. Though over the years my thinking (and this blog, which will soon follow that thinking) evolved to consider many more Dharma topics (self and self belonging, suffering, aggregates, karma, etc.), I always come ‘home’ to impermanence. It’s my staple food for thought. It is my constant companion. It is the Dharma, my great refuge. So here I want to offer you, Dear Reader, one more simple tool that I consider a…
